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The
Gettysburg Address
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
November 19, 1863
Four score and seven years ago our
fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived
in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are
created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil
war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and
so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great
battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of
that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave
their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether
fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not
dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this
ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have
consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The
world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but
it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living,
rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they
who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather
for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before
us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to
that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion
-- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have
died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new
birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the
people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
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